Meet: Nunch

Hello World! It's been a while...

A year, actually, since I wrote my last post. But all for a good reason. I decided I had to completely shift my time and focus. Time is limited and focus is harder to accomplish these days. I'm finally ready to share with you all what I've been working on in the past year!

Introducing - Nunch, an iOS app for all fitness enthusiasts to help you track your calories, macros, and weight goals. It ships with a pre-loaded food database with variety of foundational foods and if something is not available, you can create your own library of foods, meals, and recipes.

More Than a Year Ago

I'm a big foodie and I enjoy delicious food. To keep my weight in check I've been doing sports and exercising as long as I remember. I started doing body building some 20 years ago and tracking my calories for about 10 years. I used some of the most popular macro tracking apps out there and while they worked for a while, they changed drastically, adding new features that I didn't need. As if macro tracking wasn't hard enough, they made it even harder.

So I got an idea to make my own app to fix a problem I had. And hopefully maybe someone else's too. This was in 2018, just as I was starting my career transition to becoming a developer.

The idea was always there, but life happened. I moved from Croatia to Canada, which was a huge undertaking. Then, of course, I had to first learn how to write code.

Fast forward to 2022, I finally decided to do something about my idea. I opened a fresh new project in Xcode, such an awesome feeling - and had no idea what to do. crickets.

So I did what I knew my app was going to have... I created a Settings screen...

Along with theme selection and alternate app icons.

The Past Year

Last year, in 2024, I was on vacation with my hubby. After being exhausted from work, it was a welcoming change. You know how your mind relaxes and shifts its thinking when you're away from work? That's what happened. We decided I'd quit my job and go all in on my app. It was such an exciting time! So I quit my job in July and went all in.

At that time, I had something I've been building very slowly over the years, but still no clear idea what I wanted the app to look like and how it should work.

This is how my first dashboard looked like.

The Tech Specs

I decided to use all the latest Apple technologies and support iOS 18.0+, with Swift 6.0, SwiftUI and SwiftData. There was a lot of scepticism in the iOS Community whether SwiftData is a good choice, but I wanted to give it a chance. I knew of its limitations, and let me tell you, it turned out great!

SwiftUI was my drawing canvas. I could change layout in seconds and immediately see the change in previews. I checked some other apps to see how they designed their layouts and how their flows worked. They gave me ideas and some starting points. I've changed my UI a lot of times. I would build something and then ended up not liking it or it just didn't work well together. It was a process.

Now, some of you might wonder, what the h*** have I been doing for a year. Well, it took 20.000 lines of code and countless hours to build everything. A lot of the code I wrote and features I've implemented were new to me.

I wanted to make sure the app was fast, there were no crashes and everything worked flawlessly. I had to add all the basic functionality you'd expect in a macro tracker app. The competition in the market is fierce.

Oh, and I also designed my own app icon in Sketch! Here's the current selection in the app. I have a lot more ideas for some seasonal, fun, alternatives. Because macro tracking should be fun! And spaghetti hair? Why not!

The Learnings

I knew by building something myself I would learn a lot. It's not a new concept. I've built smaller demo apps for my articles or if I wanted to learn something. But this is my first time building a fully production app all on my own. I have learned so much. So much!

In a regular work environment, you usually get onboarded on a new project and only get to work on a small part of the code. Architecture is already set up. Networking layer is written. Core Data is implemented. You just use it. You're lucky if your manager gives you time to learn all that code. Now, not all jobs are the same, but I've never had an opportunity to see a new app come to fruition before.

I've also struggled. A lot. There were days where I wanted to throw my laptop down the window. But we all probably have those days. What I love about those days is there's always rainbow after rain. That moment you figure things out - is priceless. You feel like a king (or queen) of the world.

It's Only Just Beginning

I don't know if I can say "the hard part is done", because it's only just the start. Writing code was probably the easy(er) part. Now comes marketing, sales, support, and everything else.

I have to say I feel very proud to put something out there that I've been working on very hard for a long time. I'm very grateful to my hubby for helping me brainstorm ideas, report bugs, and build me amazing website for my app! And also his brother, Juraj. They were my first two users and I couldn't have done it without them. And a special thanks to my friend Darko who's been around for a long time and helped brainstorm a lot of features. And everyone else who's been around, cheering on me, giving me advice, and just being there! Thank you.

I've been looking forward to this day for a very long time and I'll say - the hard part is done. Mostly because I've no idea what awaits me now on the other side, but I'm here to find out.

I was reluctant to say this publicly for a long time, because I had nothing to show for. But I think I can now proudly say - I'm an indie developer.

Let's hope it stays that way!

Please feel free to reach out on X (Twitter) or Mastodon if you have any questions, comments, or feedback.

Thank you for reading!